Johan's raw and unedited race report of IronMike draft legal sprint race in Italy Race Day.
Relaxed start, this race starts at 11:00. lovely, time to have breakfast, shower, spresso, get the bags ready and at 9:30 Johan was in Transition area, setting up. The marty way. helmet, glasses folded open In the helmet. 1 bottle of fluid on the bike, tires fixing stuff 4 yanevaknow. tires up to PSI's, yesterday cleaned the tranny so I knew that everything was clean, clear and oiled.
Running shoes ready, race number, one small, big opening bottle of water to chunk if necessary. Swimcap, goggles, tri-top stuffedinto the tri bottom, now Johan is ready.
One more time gently stretch the IT, massage only the muscle.
SWIM: 15 * 50mtr. lanes = 750 mts
Batteria 2, we get prio to the swim, who is swimming what time on distance for 100 mtrs. This makes the drafting order easy to determine. I in in 4th place of the 7 in my lane. BANG,and of we go.Long strokes, all feels good, smooth and relaxed. then, number 3 takes over number 2 before a turn. I try but it is not possible for me to cath upi again with (now) number 2. I try to catch up but now # 3 doesn;t understand what he is (supposed) to do and twice he gets right in my way so I settle for two lanes and then take wim over during a turn. Although I have no one to draft of, my strokes are too franctic and I realzie I need to relax again. So I do and the tempo stays the same but the speed inproves, it just glides better.
I take three other in the lane and get out of the water in 12:48. ( WOOHOO) 1:37 per 100 on a 750 pool swim, not bad and where I hoped I would stay under 1:40 - 100.
While running to T1, get the shirt up, all goes well.
T1.
I decide to put the cycling shoes not on the bike. last year was a disaster and this year the racks are so small it is difficult to do, so, shoes on, sunglasses, helmet CLICK, bike onracked, GO. T1 clocked when getting mounted on the bike = 57 sec. + 31 sec. of getting
from the pool to the T1 area.
BIKE. 22.5 KM (13.7 miles)
Out of T1, I see 3- 4 guys in front of me, about 300-400 mtrs away. Great I think, no we can draft off eachother, something that I couldn;t do last year because I was the last out of the pool then. Well, after 2K, they are slow so i need ot pass them. maybe a tactic becasue after 10 minutes in the bike race I see that three guys are tagging along. At this time my legs feel great I am clocking 24.1-25.3 mls/hr, can and do drink fluids at this speed; So no problem I think, after the next turn we have a straight road, someone else can take head. Yeah, DUH. NOT. So now we are at half way the race and I decide that we (them) are not going to draft the whole frigging race of johan so i slow down, deleberately. now, sometake over and so we form a new paceline and we fall back to 21.5 miles per hour. Now I get a little upset, they can draft but cannot lead??? WTF. Well it ends up they the can;t pull it off. so after 4 minutes I take lead again and stay there until we come into T2. In prep for t2, I leave the shoes on the bike, get my feet out the shoe sin the last 100mtrs and are able to jump of right at the demounting line and continue running into T2, the other, unclipped, or tried too while getting calle dby the ref because they rolled over the de-mounting line.
Bike: 34' 56" ( avrg 24.0 mls/hour)
T2
so, T2, I know where my spot is, blindly, as trained by Marty I have ran the line a couple of times before the race. exit and entry I always run a couple of times before the race starts. just handy......
Back in the rack, helmet off, running shoes on while standing and gettingmy number on, one big gulp of water and off. T2, 1'10"
Run
My quads feel great, the Right IT band has no extra friction, no pain, no nothing, just working fine.!
So I start slow, it is a running course over mostlygrass areas and some gravel walkng paths. the firt 1K, feels good, a little right leg, outside knee is talking. Ah, I know, strides to big, too much power, so smaller steps, higher tempr. and so it goed well. Aid 1, no water, Aid 2, water cup, three sips, done!, running, I increase my tempo a little, feels all well, the only thing that is not happy is the spleen. Oh well. I relax a little, back of just enough to let the pain subside and then maintain and at mid point running, things and johan feel great. I increase tempo a little, still feel good, i stay at this rate because I know I can sustain this until the finish and so I do. My upper body is relaxed and the legs do the work, tempo a little faster than normal but I do not feel any problems withthe right quads, IT band or in that regards any other leg muscles, left or right. Just the breathing get a little more freqeunt, not so much heavy. getting slowly out of breath.
Last 1K, things feels great, I pas up another two guys from my group. this feels good. no I decide to go until I feel the nausiating sensation in the gut and try to run against it, no pucking for me but close enough. It goes............... (well).
and I see my time when going over the finish line, 1:11:34. now I almost puck but I keep it in, keep walking a little to calm down the heart.
I get myself the tea, ( very sweet) banana, orange and I will wait at the finish line for more guys.
after about 5 minutes I get tapped on the shoulder.
Hmm Italian guys, two fo them, I do not know him. He start in english with italian accent, sound great I can understand why women love that. He Thanks me for biking???!!! non capisco I say I don;t understand) you are a great cyclist like lance he says... Ah, He explains that the two of them where behind me and that they really tried to stay at speed but they coouldn;t and where so happy I took the lead again. they have had their best cycling times ever. LOL, Well you are welcome.!!
So for all th work on the bike, there was an actual thank you, from an Italian. And I got compaired to Lance!!!. WOW, what a great experience.
that's all. now I am at home, having coffee and feelign really good about the race, the treatment of the IT band and I feel getting more and more ready for Klagenfurt!
FDM is thankful for good coaching and a body that listens when it is needed.
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